Walk-behind lawn mowers are more commonly being equipped with rear grass bagger arrangements instead of side grass bagger arrangements. The rear baggers permit the operator to maneuver more closely to trees, hedges and other lawn obstacles and thereby trim the grass closely adjacent to those obstacles. Additionally, the rear bagger distributes the weight of the collected grass onto the rear wheels of the mower, whereas a side bagger arrangement carries the weight of the cut grass to the side of the mower and may tend to upweight one side of the mower during its operation.
In rear bagger walk-behind mowers, the grass discharge opening is commonly in the rear portion of the mower housing. Since the grass cuttings and other objects discharged from such rear exits would fall in the path of the operator, it is desirable to equip the mower with a discharge structure which provides for sidewardly discharge of the grass clippings. The side discharge also provides for a wider and more evenly disbursed band of clippings and reduces the likelihood that discharged objects can be thrown into the operator.
To provide for side discharge capability, it is common to equip rear bagger mowers with a side deflector mechanism which can be mounted to the machine when the rear bagger attachment is removed. Such arrangements, however, are inconvenient in that they take the form of separate attachments and thereby require that the grass catching bag be removed when the side deflector is to be installed and vice versa. Further, these side deflectors are shaped in the form of a closed tunnel or conduit and sometimes experience plugging when heavy grass and/or wet grass clippings pass through them.